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The deadly war of the Jesuits against Protestantism continued in the

New World-Cant of Bancroft the Historian-Illustrations-Martyr-

dom?-Facts and Motives of Jesuit Missions-League of the Iro-
quois-Intrigues of the Jesuits-First Intercolonial War-Predomi-
nance of Jesuit Instigation...

... 1GC

"S A M.”

OR, THE

HISTORY OF MYSTERY.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

The Mysterious birth of "Sam"-Some of his Youthful Feats and Characteristic Eccentricities.

ONCE, when Earth, the good mother, was in grievous tribulation because of her children, and a voice of wailing was heard among the nations, a great cloud grew up suddenly in the East, and there seemed a sign of fire and tempest within its bosom.

All the peoples felt the shadow of this great cloud upon them, but they knew not what the strange portent meant, except that, to certain minds among them, it seemed that this gathering of mighty forces must be pregnant with some MYSTERY that was to step out from its bosom soon, as if the "Son of the morning" came forth from the caves of night, and that this mystery, too, was most like to stand as an embodiment, whether an incarnated embodiment or not, of some new birth of regeneration to all mankind.

Though it was thus the wise man spoke, or rather hoped, yet there was no one who knew these things to be true; therefore the people trembled, and were afraid, while the turmoil of this cloudy PRESENCE rolled with its slow shadow over them; and when they saw it take its way toward the West, over the solitary sea, they wondered greatly whither it might be speeding. Only the Viking's wandering prow had furrowed that solitary sea, as yet, when the great cloud set forth upon its face; but there were daring men who said

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its shadow was a protection, and that no harm could come to any bark which sailed beneath it.

And soon, from the port of Palos, in Andalusia, a fleet of little ships, like three cockleshells, went dancing forth upon the open sea, and were quickly hid from view beneath that shadow. A mighty sailor stood within these deckless hulls, whose deep-visioned eyes saw beyond all shadows. (1492, 3d August.)

And when men saw the mighty sailor forth, then from many a port went many a vessel, to sail within his wake, and all the world was filled with wonder of the golden miracles those ships brought back. And many a gay, adventuring host went shining underneath that shadow, that its slow glooms would not give up.

At length (Dec. 11th, 1620), the great cloud, which for more than a hundred years had wandered up and down, brooding upon the sea, gathered together, and amidst a mighty anthem of the waves and winds, struck upon a headland rock, at Plymouth, and its voluminous folds, wrapping the snows for a moment, shivered as in a throe, then, thin and dim, commenced to fade upon the icy air.

Now, as the shattered cloud rose up, a strange, frail ship that seemed to have been hidden within its womb of shadow, lay trembling feebly in the offing on subsiding waves. The name of the little ship was "Mayflower."

But when the cloud was all gone, there lay stretched upon the snow-covered summit of that headland rock a gigantic form, which seemed most like some helpless and misshapen Titan, which had been thus struck dumb, blind and sprawling out of the thunders of a tempest-birth, and hurled upon the desolation.

The trees yet rocked behind the passing storm when the bright sun came out, glittering keenly from the angles of the frosty rocks, upon this pale, ungainly specter, which, born thus of the thunder, seemed the incarnation of some new and powerful FORCE.

Touched by the sun, its lips moved in inarticulate sounds, that seemed in natural consonance with the groanings of the struggling forest, which bent its trees like grass-spears beneath the heavy head, thus pillowed on them all unconsciously.

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